In LA fire horror, California elites face the consequences of blue misrule

The vivid, heartbreaking images from this week’s Los Angeles wildfires called urgent attention to California’s longtime decline.But this time, those affected by its bad policies and bad governance include a demographic rarely touched by them: the rich.Over the last several years, California’s net out-migration numbers set records.An astounding 343,000 more people left the Golden State than moved to it in 2022, the highest net loss of any state, and 2023 was almost as bad, with a net loss of 268,100. But the wealthy of California largely stayed put.

It was mostly the lower and middle classes, walloped by notoriously high taxes, mismanagement at every level of government and crumbling infrastructure, who made a run for the door.The affluent have been largely protected from all that. They could easily absorb the heavy tax burden and the high costs of housing or gas.Like Gov.

Gavin Newsom, they could avoid their state’s failing public schools and send their kids to private schools instead.But no water in a fire hydrant is a great equalizer.Comedian Billy Crystal lost his home — all but its tennis court — in Pacific Palisades.The homes of actors Anthony Hopkins, Miles Teller and John Goodman were wiped out there, too.Heiress Paris Hilton said she saw her luxe Malibu vacation house “burn to the ground on live TV.”It’s unpleasant to talk about the politics that led to the loss of entire neighborhoods, but it’s necessary to examine the terrible policies that led to this preventable disaster.After over a decade of one-party rule, California has become the testing ground for the left’s most extreme ideas — and we are seeing the results in real time now. Whether it was cutting the budget of fire departments, not refilling the reservoirs, ignoring deforesting guidelines under pressure from environmentalists or simply deflecting blame, California’s leaders are agonizingly inept — and it shows. Newsom has been the physical embodiment of the shru...